WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People
who eat a meat-laden diet have more than triple the average risk
of esophageal cancer and double the risk of stomach cancer, US
researchers reported Thursday.

The report adds to several studies that link eating meat, especially
``red'' meat such as beef, with certain cancers. Colon cancer
has been the cancer type most strongly linked with a high-meat
diet.

The study of people living in Nebraska found that those who ate
the most meat had 3.6 times the risk of esophageal cancer and
double the risk of stomach cancer when compared with people eating
what the researchers considered a healthy diet.

People who ate a lot of dairy products, who tended also to eat
a lot of meat, had double the risk of both cancers, the researchers
report in the January issue of the American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition.

Mary Ward, Honglei Chen and colleagues at the National Cancer
Institute, Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts and elsewhere
surveyed 124 people with stomach cancer, 124 people with esophageal
cancer and 449 people who did not have cancer.

They asked detailed questions about their eating habits, then
characterized their diets as being ``healthy,'' ``high meat,''
''high milk,'' high in salty snacks, heavy on desserts and heavy
on white bread.

The so-called healthy diet had the highest amounts of fruits,
vegetables and whole grains and generally matched the government
recommendations that people eat at least five servings of fruit
and vegetables a day; up to 10 servings of grains, breads and
pasta and just two to three small servings of meat.

The healthy eating group--21% of those surveyed--also generally
ate the fewest calories.

``In contrast with this healthy dietary pattern, the high-meat
dietary pattern included much higher intakes of meats and much
lower intakes of fruits, bread and cereals,'' the researchers
report.

They said 33% of stomach cancer patients and 35% of esophageal
cancer patients ate either the high-meat or high-milk diets.